The SDFLA Blog is dedicated to providing news and notes regarding federal practice in the Southern District of Florida. The New Times calls the blog "the definitive source on South Florida's federal court system." All tips on court happenings are welcome and will remain anonymous. Please email David Markus at dmarkus@markuslaw.com

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

How much should a cop have to pay for illegally spying on you?

A South Florida police officer owes $15,000 in damages to a Broward County couple she illegally snooped on 167 times in two years, jurors decided Tuesday.

Pembroke Pines Police Officer Melodie Carpio admitted she broke the law and used her job to look up information about the couple — her boyfriend’s ex-wife and her new husband — on confidential law enforcement databases.

Carpio, a 41-year-old patrol officer, is personally liable to pay the civil judgment to Cindy Thibault and Claude Letourneau. She will also owe significantly more in legal fees to the attorneys for the victims and her defense.

The couple smiled and looked relieved when jurors announced their verdict after a one-day trial in federal court in Miami. They declined to comment.

12 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I am pretty antagonistic towards cops, and tend to think that cops should have their feet held to the fire for any perceived abuse of power. But I don't like this at all. Did the plaintiffs suffer any actual harm? Probably not. The officer should probably be fired for misconduct, but the plaintiffs shouldn't be enriched. This seems like the plaintiffs received a windfall as part of an ugly family dispute. This result stinks.

How do you define actual harm? If I hack into your brokerage account to see how much money you have and how you spend your money, wouldn't you fee you've been harmed? What if I steal your credit card statements, just to snoop?

9:02am here. I would be angry, but I would not have been damaged. Me getting paid because you did that doesn't make sense. You should probably spend some time in jail for hacking my brokerage account or stealing my credit card statements.

9:02 - but the payment is a form of punishment. Why should the taxpayers-in the form of the cost of incarceration - pay? I think a much better outcome is for the defendant to pay directly for her transgression.

this is 9:02am. The defendant could very well "pay" in the form of a fine. And as for why the tax payer should incur the cost - its because society has an interest in maintaining order. And the criminal penalty could include the cost of prosecution. Hell, in a case like this, a fine would be just fine (and probably getting fired too).

What is not correct is turning this into a potential windfall that encourages bullshit personal injury cases where no actual injury occurred.

9:02am again. Making this into a civil matter (as opposed to a criminal matter) harms me twice: first the harm you did to me, and second my forcing me to be the enforcement arm of the law at my expense and headache. When a cop, a public servant, abuses the power afforded to her, she has harmed society at large as well as the individual that she targeted. Society at large (i.e. the government) should address this problem.

9:02 I see you now are agreed that the plaintiffs were harmed by the snooping. I'm glad we can agree to that.

But now you're arguing who should try to remedy the harm. I really can't see your argument that you are "harmed" by bringing a voluntary civil suit. You could advocate for internal discipline, a criminal sanction (where a monetary payment also may be imposed), or bring a civil case. By voluntarily brining a civil case, a person is not "harmed."

Obviously an emotionally charged case that elicits many opinions. Most of all, truly an honor to practice in front of someone as brilliant, insightful, and reasonable as Judge Huck. He's really just a thoughtful and impressive person.

The Southern District of Florida blog was started in 2005 by David Oscar Markus, who is a criminal trial and appellate lawyer in Miami, Florida. He frequently practices in federal courts around the country, including his hometown, the Southern District of Florida and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a former law clerk to then-Chief Judge of the District, Edward B. Davis.